Over the past several years, we’ve come to embrace social media that connects, excites and moves thousands into action over politics and other causes, creates many industries and destroys others, and offers an enormous amount of both visual and audio entertainment. But the question to answer is has all this incredible change actually changed us, or just the world we live in?

Let’s look closely at few areas in which social media has had lasting, and arguably permanent effects on the ways in which we live. Then the question becomes, are these changes all for the better?

The Power of Knowledge - Until recently, knowledge and wisdom through books was the closely guarded asset of the wealthy and elite classes that had the time and desire to learn, and trade skills like blacksmithing; dressmaking, shoe cobbling, and sailing were passed down through families by word-of-mouth. Illiteracy was common and held people back from learning and acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to advance in life, but with the ability of use computers and available technology to provide and distribute information, and the way that Google, Wikipedia and websites and blogs have empowered people to share what they know, and they are limited by their own desire for knowledge. It’s there for you — if and whenever you want it.

Ambient Intimacy - People have become so connected through social media networks that a new term has been coined called ‘ambient intimacy’ that enables us to keep in touch with others on a certain level of intimacy and frequency that would normally be unavailable to us without social media technology and networking. We hear from friends through Twitter when they are frustrated with new technology, where and what they are eating for lunch, their real time thoughts on any number important current events, and events they are attending. Flickr lets us see visually where and what they are eating, what their latest outfit might look like, and the action at events they are attending.

Technologies developed over the past ten years dramatically increased their availability at the touch, as they seemingly surround us on all sides, making it extremely convenient to use them whenever and wherever we want, and to what level of intimacy we decide. The convenience of the communication that surrounds us, has empowered us to use the technology when and wherever we want and need it.

Children’s Literacy - I think we can all agree that it stands to reason that children who read and write more, are better at reading and writing, and the practice of writing blog posts, status updates, text messages, instant messages, and the like all serve to motivate children to read and write. Results of recent children surveys observed a correlation between the level of children’s engagement with social media and their literacy. Simply put, social media has helped children become more literate, and just as important, challenges them to learn to think for themselves. Further, other studies also draw a correlation between education and online activity, which found that online activity increased with the level of formal activity.

Opportunities for the Disabled - Social Media is providing the physically challenged and disabled with the tools and applications to open up new worlds and opportunities by providing the means to connect with friends, family, organizations, business, schools and churches, thereby giving them greater personal validation and empowerment to stay CONNECTED and really be a contributing part of what’s happening in both local and web-based communities transformed by social media. In addition, application platforms like eBay and Amazon.com can level the playing field and provide real opportunities for disabled entrepreneurs to successfully operate retail businesses online.

The New Politics - Over the past 10 years evidence indicates that social networks might be encouraging younger people to become increasingly involved in politics, and as recent as 2009 we only need to examine Twitter’s recent impact on the elections in Iran, and especially the recent election of Barack Obama a little over a year ago in 2008 to see that more and more people are getting involved in politics and are feeling they can make a difference as part of something larger they connect and communicate with real time.

Popular political blogs on the web lend themselves well to social media, and Twitter even rescheduled an update because of the important role it was playing in the Iran elections.

These are all signs of both social media’s increasing influence in politics, and the growing interest in politics from users of social media.

Marketing Change - Marketing and advertising is slowly transforming itself from an industry once reliant upon mass market channels to one which must recognize the value of, and embrace the power of the consumer and engage in conversational relationships. The traditional approach of casting a wide net for reach with repetitive messages is quickly being replaced by many much smaller, and targeted niche and people centered activities that can be quickly changed and directly delivered. It is important to note that Advertising isn’t dying, it’s merely changing form, as consumers now have more power, and much more choice.

News as Cultural Currency - We have moved from being consumers of passive messages to active participants, and most likely get, and rely more heavily on the latest news through the networks we have individually created, and at the same time the type of news and information we share and pass on provides information about us as groups and individuals, what we’re interested in and what’s important to us, information that has not been so readily available before, and is being used more often to directly target us as groups and individuals with only product and service specific messages we have shown an interest in.

Conclusion - There will always be skeptics that try to point to possible negative effects including issues like reduced attention spans, reduced ability to empathize, erosion of individual identities, and increased use of prescription drugs as a result of increased time at computers, and the loss of social skills that impacts community life.

I think they couldn’t be further from the truth, and anyone with the slightest experience of using social media knows that it’s about being more social. We are more ENGAGED with friends, we are more LITERATE, more CONNECTED, more open to creating new relationships, and generally more interested in the world around us.